Genealogy, local history and historical research in New England and other interesting places. Nutfield was the former land grant ................................. that is now the towns of Londonderry, Derry and Windham, New Hampshire.

Chesebrough - - Sounds funny, doesn’t it? Or does it? I’ve never really ever heard anyone pronounce
this name, so if someone out there knows please drop me a comment!

I first became especially interested in this family
when I saw that William Chesebrough married his wife Ann Stevenson on 15
December 1620 at the St. Botolph’s church in Boston, Lincolnshire, England,
where my Pilgrim ancestors first left England for Holland. Also, it is interesting to consider that
Reverend John Cotton was their minister at St. Botolph’s and then again their teacher
at the First Church in Boston, Massachusetts.
I have seen many immigrants coming to New England in this time period to
follow their ministers, who left England for being “non-conformists”.

William and his family immigrated to Boston in 1630,
and then they removed to the Braintree church on 16 February 1639/40, and were
dismissed again to Rehoboth on 9 April 1648.
Sometime later they removed to Connecticut and settled at Stonington.

On 23 May 1667 William Chesebrough wrote a will in
Stonington, which was proved on 17 September 1667. Anna left a will dated 19
March 1672/3. I was sad to see that the
original documents are missing from the probate files, and the only record of
them that exists today are transcriptions in the published Chesebrough
genealogy Descendants of William Chesebrough, Founder of Stonington,
Connecticut, by Anna Chesebrough Widley, 1903. There is a large monument to William
Chesebrough at the Wequetequock Burial Ground in Stonington, and his original
gravesite is nearby.

For sources on the Chesebrough family please see the
sketch about William Chesebrough at The Great Migration Begins, by Robert
Charles Anderson, Volume 1, pages 339 to 345.
Also see The American Genealogist, Volume 19, page 78, Volume 21, pages
190 – 191, and Volume 22, pages 60 – 61 for Samuel in the second
generation. Also see my post about the
Ingraham family at this link: http://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2013/04/surname-saturday-ingraham.html

My Chesebrough lineage:

Generation 1:
William Chesebrough, born about 1595 probably in Lincolnshire, England,
died 9 June 1667 in Wequetequock, Stonington, Connecticut; married on 15
December 1620 at St. Botolph’s Church, Boston, Lincolnshire, England to Ann
Stevenson, who was born 23 August 1598 in Boston, England and died 24 August
1673 in Wequetequock, Stonington. They
had eleven children.

Generation 2:
Samuel Chesebrough, born about 1627 in Boston, England and died 31 July
1673 in Stonington; married on 3 November 1655 in Rehoboth, Massachusetts to
Abigail Ingraham, possible daughter of Richard Ingraham. She died 18 April 1700 in Stonington. Seven children.

Generation 3:
Elizabeth Chesebrough, born 6 January 1669 in Stonington, died after
1708 in Stonington; married about 1689 in Stonington to William Ingraham. He was the son of William Ingraham and Mary
Bairstow, born 27 January 1658 in Boston, Massachusetts, and died 16 January
1708 in Stonington. Seven children.

How about that! Stonington, CT is in my neck of the woods. And here it was founded by immigrants coming from Boston -- it sounds as if they were looking for a compatible church. They moved several times, clearly determined to find a church where they could make their home.

I like your spelling Cheese borough, which sounds like a likely pronunciation to me, allowing for the British compression of the ending which would make it sort of like "bruh," as in "Wooster" sauce.

As I noted in your Ingraham Surname Saturday, I am also descended from Samuel Chesebrough and his wife Abigail Ingraham (my 9th great-grandparents). I have seen many variations on the spelling of Chesebrough and have wondered at how it has been pronounced throughout the years.

I too stumbled upon your blog post and can offer the pronunciation of the surname as my part of the family has practiced it. We pronounce Chesebrough as “cheese bro”. I have an original copy of Anna Widley’s 1903 genealogy, which has my grandfather as one of its last entries. The Old Lighthouse museum in Stonington has an interesting portrait of William Chesebrough. The curator thought I had his nose. :-) I am not sure which of his children my branch is descended from.

To the earlier comment regarding finding a suitable church William’s motivation for heading west did seem to stem from a degree of incompatibility with the governance in Massachusetts colony and the church hierarchy, but there must have also been a decided spirit of adventure and desire for a greater degree of freedom. When William arrived at the head of Wequetequock cove it was unsettled wilderness populated by native Pequot peoples.

Larry Chesebro in St. Louis maintains a Chesebrough genealogy web site at http://www.chesebro.net/.

An interesting factoid about the family is that Sir Robert Augustus Chesebrough, Born in London and knighted by Queen Victoria, invented Vaseline and was the founder of the Chesebrough Manufacturing Company, which later became Chesebrough-Ponds. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Chesebrough

I am the 11th generation 1-William2-Samuel-3-Elisha4-Elisha-5-Sylvester-6-Elisha, or Elihu{twins},7-Stephen8-John9-Dee10-Gaylord-11Karen Cheesbro DiCiccoWe pronounce it Cheese Bro but spell it Cheesbro.

Copyright

You may NOT use the contents of this site for commercial purposes without explicit permission from the author and blog owner. Commercial purposes includes blogs with ads and income generating features, and/or blogs or sites using feed content as a replacement for original content. Full content usage is not permitted.

My Family Tree Information

Google+ Followers

Followers

Networked Blogs

About Me

Author of the Nutfield Genealogy blog and occasional genealogy speaker. My family research includes Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine, with a smattering of Nova Scotia. Please contact me if you see your ancestors on this blog. I would love to share information. I am the former secretary of the New Hampshire Mayflower Society, former President of the Londonderry Historical Society, member of the New England Historic Genealogical Society, the Mass. Society of Genealogists, The National Genealogical Society, and the New Hampshire Society of Genealogists.